


You and I'll be Safe and Sound

by ashen_key



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (although it's only mentioned), Arrow Necklace, Clint Barton's Farm, Cute, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's waiting for her at the Waterloo Bus Depot and it's a damn shame she can't just pause everything and stare at him. She might get her heart to stop doing flips then.</p><p>“C'mon, I'll take you home.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I'll be Safe and Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLvop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/gifts).



> Many thanks to [FiKate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FiKate/pseuds/FiKate) and wildpear for giving this a read over. Title comes from Taylor Swift's Safe & Sound.

Clint's waiting for her at the Waterloo Bus Depot, a still figure leaning against a pillar as he scans traffic both human and vehicular, and it's a damn shame she can't just pause everything and stare at him. She might get her heart to stop doing flips then. Get used to him again after time away. 

The world doesn't pause, but Natasha gives herself until the other passengers have left the bus before she pulls herself to her feet. Not that it's hard to reassure herself she hadn't waited purely out of sentiment: her left shoulder is still loudly protesting against having a hole in it, and her painkillers are buried in her carry-on bag. 

Outside the bus, Clint straightens and waves. He's got a smile just for her, but the Iowa sun is beating down, and there are people milling around loudly, and she has to get her other bags, and the buses are loud, and he's walking over and -

She smiles back. “Hi.”

“Hey, baby girl,” he replies, reaching out to briefly squeeze her hand. “I'll grab your bags.” He looks worn around the edges, with something of the post-New York fragility back. Anything else, anything deeper that's wrong, she can't tell. Not yet. 

The walk back to his car is mostly silent, and she appreciates it. Small talk can wait until everything stops being so _much_. It's not the only thing that can wait, either. While she's not sure how to word 'I'm not sorry I burned down the organisation you've given the past twenty-odd years of your life to and exposed most of your friends as fascist cultists, but I _am_ really fucking sorry it hurt you', it really needs to be said when they aren't in public. 

If there was any security update she needed to know immediately, he'd tell her. That's the main thing. And he doesn't. 

Instead, Clint waits until she's buckled into the passenger seat. His hand goes to her knee, gentle and familiar, and god but she loves him. She's been in transit for over twenty-five hours, and the world has gone slightly to hell, and just over a month ago she'd been sitting in the back of a van bleeding out and knowing that she was almost certainly never going to see him again, and she loves him, and if anyone tries to hurt him, she's going to set them on _fire_. 

“I, uh. Noticed your necklace. It's nice,” he adds, quirking his eyebrows up a little. 

Natasha reaches up and brushes the small arrow at her throat. “I really missed you,” she says, quietly. 

Clint studies her for a moment, expression torn between a somewhat goofy smile and confusion. “I've just been here,” he says. He doesn't say, _you could have been, too._

“Yeah. I know. I haven't.” She takes a breath through suddenly tight ribs and curls her fingers around his. “But, now I am.” 

He hesitates, and then leans over to kiss her. The angle is awkward, and between the seatbelt and her shoulder, she can't really twist up to meet him, but she kisses him back anyway.

“I missed you, too, 'Tasha,” Clint says softly, lifting his head to kiss her hair before settling back in his seat. “C'mon, I'll take you home.”

 _Home_ is the farmhouse roughly five minutes west of Waverly that he grew up in. The community knew his family, know him; they'd give warning of any strangers coming to town looking for trouble. She'd be lying if that'd never been a selling point. But _home_ is also the house that Clint has spent the past few years bringing back to life, _home_ is his house with a place in the wardrobe for her clothes and a tin of her tea in the kitchen, _home_ is...well.

Him. 

So Natasha smiles a little, and says, “I'd like that.”


End file.
